$100,000 and rising for a car park in Auckland's CBD

From Checkpoint, 5:31 pm on 7 March 2017

Underground carparks in Auckland CBD are regularly selling for more than homes cost in some parts of New Zealand, says a real estate agent.

Central Realty agent Tracy Taylor said one of her clients recently turned down an unconditional offer of $90,000 cash for a carpark near AUT University, because her client believed it was worth more.

Homes in both the North and South Islands are listed for sale on Trade Me for less than $100,000.

“Most carparks now if they’re in a good position sell around $90,000 and actually I’ve heard of quite a few selling for over $100,000 now,” Ms Taylor said.

“I had a lot of clients that thought when it was $10,000 that that was crazy and then when it went to $50,000 they thought the same thing, and now they’re going, darn, we should’ve bought quite a few of these.”

The man who offered Ms Taylor’s client $90,000 did not wish to be named, but said he was now looking to buy an apartment with a carpark.

“It's a bad investment putting $100,000 into a carpark. I’m trying to find a unit that has got a carpark so I can rent the unit out and use the carpark myself,” the buyer said.

Ms Taylor believed the price of carparks in Auckland was going to increase further.

“Auckland Council’s pushing for there to be a lot more apartments [in the city] because of the housing crisis but a lot of them are selling without carparks,” she said.